11/11/2009 - New post-fire forest recovery guideline

During his DSE experience following the 2003 bushfires in Victoria, Owen Bassett developed what he calls “rapid response” techniques and refined them during his 2006/07 Great Divide Fire work for VicForests. Following the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, he was contracted by DSE to lead aspects of forest monitoring and recovery.

As part of Forest Solutions’ brief, Owen also joined the DSE team developing the new Native Forest Silviculture Guideline (NFSG) for forest recovery following bushfire. Owen’s “rapid response” techniques form an important component of the guideline, which covers procedures for the assessment of fire scorch intensity (canopy damage), the forest’s capacity to self regenerate, identifying damaged areas requiring rehabilitation, seed supply considerations for recovery, and site rehabilitation techniques.  Owen is a co-author of NFSG #17, which is available from Information Victoria and also on the DSE website.